Hawker Tempest V
Legendary British aircraft designer Sydney Camm began working on a replacement for the successful Hawker Hurricane fighter in 1937, what would become the Hawker Typhoon. While the Typhoon was to prove one of the best ground-attack fighters of World War II, it was less impressive as a fighter: it was hoped to be able to counter the Focke-Wulf 190, but the German fighter was far superior. To make matters worse, the Typhoon had, at first, become more of a danger to its own pilots than the Germans. A number of Typhoons had suffered complete and fatal tail failures in flight, which was later traced to the harmonic vibration of the powerful Napier Sabre engine, which itself was notoriously temperamental. While these problems would be solved and the Typhoon to go on to an enviable career, it was still not the fighter Camm intended it to be.
Even before the Typhoon had begun showing its flaws, Camm was already disappointed in its performance, which he believed was due to the thick wing. Drawing on the success of the P-51 Mustang, he experimented with fitting a clipped version of the Mustang’s laminar flow wing to a Typhoon, which improved performance considerably. This thinner wing required that the aircraft’s four 20mm cannon armament be set further back, which in turn necessitated the adoption of a Spitfire-style elliptical wing (Camm later claimed this was also to get the British Air Ministry to buy it, as “they didn’t trust anything that didn’t look like a Spitfire”). The wing shape also improved performance and helped eliminate the vibration problem that had destroyed so many Typhoons. The landing gear was made wider and the radiator moved from beneath the nose to the wings; in an interesting innovation, Camm included a small step and handholds for the pilot to get into the aircraft, which would automatically retract once the canopy was closed. The Air Ministry was indeed impressed, so much so that it was considered a new design and renamed Tempest.
However, a shortage of engines meant that Camm’s plan to fit all production Tempests with the more streamlined and improved Bristol Centaurus IV engine was not feasible; instead, two versions would be built, the Tempest II with the Centaurus and the Tempest V with the more proven Napier Sabre II. Fitting the Tempest with the Napier Sabre meant that the radiator had to be moved back under the engine, giving the Tempest a strong superficial resemblance to its “cousin,” the Typhoon. Production was concentrated on the Tempest V, since the Sabre engine was readily available, and the first flew in July 1943, a year and a half since the first pre-production Tempest I had flown.
By the time the Tempest reached combat units in April 1944, the Luftwaffe had been pushed back behind the borders of Germany and was suffering massive casualties; as a result, the Tempest would see little air-to-air combat at first. Most Tempests were kept in England itself to guard against occasional Luftwaffe sorties from France, then began to be assigned to ground attack duties, similar to the Typhoon. That changed soon after D-Day in June 1944, however, when the Germans began to attack London with V-1 cruise missiles. Intercepting the V-1 was not easy, as it was fast and small, making it hard to keep up with and hard to hit; a pilot that got too close with machine guns might be killed when he set off the V-1’s warhead. The Tempest was perfectly suited to V-1 interceptions, however: it was not immediately needed over the Continent, it had very high speed and easy handling at low altitude, and its cannon armament gave the pilot a safe distance to detonate the V-1. Tempests would shoot down 638 V-1s before the missile sites were overrun in September 1944. Tempest units now moved to liberated airbases on the Continent.
Because the Spitfire had comparatively short range, the Tempest now became the best fighter available to the RAF. Tempests based in Belgium and France could range deep into Germany, operating at low level and high speed, using their cannon armament either against the increasingly scarce Luftwaffe or against ground targets. This was dangerous work, due to heavy ground fire, but the Tempests recorded a low loss rate. When the Messerschmitt 262 began to be fielded in numbers by the Luftwaffe in late 1944, the Tempest was the best counter to it that the Allies had: while P-51s had equal performance to the Tempest, P-51 pilots usually ran into 262s by chance on escort missions. RAF Tempest squadrons, on the other hand, were assigned to “Rat Scramble” missions in which they would orbit on the edges of Germany, waiting for reports of Me 262s, then proceed at high speed and low altitude to catch the German jets as they landed. Even if the 262s were not caught with their landing gear down, the Tempest could keep up with the 262 at low level. So deadly were Tempest attacks that German flak units began to be concentrated around jet bases specifically to counter these Rat Scramble raids. In combat, the Tempest was to post an enviable 7:1 kill ratio, one of the better ratios of the European theater.
The end of World War II also brought the end to the Tempest V—production had already switched to the Centaurus-powered Tempest II, which were built with improved cooling units for “high and hot” operations in China and India. Though they would not be used against the Japanese, Tempest IIs would continue to police the British Empire in its twilight until they were finally withdrawn from service in the late 1950s, the last piston-engined fighter in British active service. Both India and Pakistan would receive Tempest IIs, and these would be used in the first of the Indo-Pakistani Wars of the 1950s. 1702 Tempests were built, and a handful, including a few flyable examples, remain in existence today.
The Hawker Tempest is represented by a Tempest V in the Malmstrom Museum’s Top Ace collection, representing the aircraft flown by French ace Pierre Clostermann. This aircraft flew with 274 Squadron from bases in France in 1944-1945, and wears late-war RAF camouflage of two shades of gray over light gray, with late-war darker roundels and smaller fin flash. It carries a Cross of Lorraine on the radiator housing beneath the nose to indicate an aircraft of the Free French flying with the RAF. Clostermann named this aircraft Le Grand Charles (“Big Charles”); the aircraft was later wrecked beyond repair in a landing accident in November 1945.
Hawker Tempest V
Legendary British aircraft designer Sydney Camm began working on a replacement for the successful Hawker Hurricane fighter in 1937, what would become the Hawker Typhoon. While the Typhoon was to prove one of the best ground-attack fighters of World War II, it was less impressive as a fighter: it was hoped to be able to counter the Focke-Wulf 190, but the German fighter was far superior. To make matters worse, the Typhoon had, at first, become more of a danger to its own pilots than the Germans. A number of Typhoons had suffered complete and fatal tail failures in flight, which was later traced to the harmonic vibration of the powerful Napier Sabre engine, which itself was notoriously temperamental. While these problems would be solved and the Typhoon to go on to an enviable career, it was still not the fighter Camm intended it to be.
Even before the Typhoon had begun showing its flaws, Camm was already disappointed in its performance, which he believed was due to the thick wing. Drawing on the success of the P-51 Mustang, he experimented with fitting a clipped version of the Mustang’s laminar flow wing to a Typhoon, which improved performance considerably. This thinner wing required that the aircraft’s four 20mm cannon armament be set further back, which in turn necessitated the adoption of a Spitfire-style elliptical wing (Camm later claimed this was also to get the British Air Ministry to buy it, as “they didn’t trust anything that didn’t look like a Spitfire”). The wing shape also improved performance and helped eliminate the vibration problem that had destroyed so many Typhoons. The landing gear was made wider and the radiator moved from beneath the nose to the wings; in an interesting innovation, Camm included a small step and handholds for the pilot to get into the aircraft, which would automatically retract once the canopy was closed. The Air Ministry was indeed impressed, so much so that it was considered a new design and renamed Tempest.
However, a shortage of engines meant that Camm’s plan to fit all production Tempests with the more streamlined and improved Bristol Centaurus IV engine was not feasible; instead, two versions would be built, the Tempest II with the Centaurus and the Tempest V with the more proven Napier Sabre II. Fitting the Tempest with the Napier Sabre meant that the radiator had to be moved back under the engine, giving the Tempest a strong superficial resemblance to its “cousin,” the Typhoon. Production was concentrated on the Tempest V, since the Sabre engine was readily available, and the first flew in July 1943, a year and a half since the first pre-production Tempest I had flown.
By the time the Tempest reached combat units in April 1944, the Luftwaffe had been pushed back behind the borders of Germany and was suffering massive casualties; as a result, the Tempest would see little air-to-air combat at first. Most Tempests were kept in England itself to guard against occasional Luftwaffe sorties from France, then began to be assigned to ground attack duties, similar to the Typhoon. That changed soon after D-Day in June 1944, however, when the Germans began to attack London with V-1 cruise missiles. Intercepting the V-1 was not easy, as it was fast and small, making it hard to keep up with and hard to hit; a pilot that got too close with machine guns might be killed when he set off the V-1’s warhead. The Tempest was perfectly suited to V-1 interceptions, however: it was not immediately needed over the Continent, it had very high speed and easy handling at low altitude, and its cannon armament gave the pilot a safe distance to detonate the V-1. Tempests would shoot down 638 V-1s before the missile sites were overrun in September 1944. Tempest units now moved to liberated airbases on the Continent.
Because the Spitfire had comparatively short range, the Tempest now became the best fighter available to the RAF. Tempests based in Belgium and France could range deep into Germany, operating at low level and high speed, using their cannon armament either against the increasingly scarce Luftwaffe or against ground targets. This was dangerous work, due to heavy ground fire, but the Tempests recorded a low loss rate. When the Messerschmitt 262 began to be fielded in numbers by the Luftwaffe in late 1944, the Tempest was the best counter to it that the Allies had: while P-51s had equal performance to the Tempest, P-51 pilots usually ran into 262s by chance on escort missions. RAF Tempest squadrons, on the other hand, were assigned to “Rat Scramble” missions in which they would orbit on the edges of Germany, waiting for reports of Me 262s, then proceed at high speed and low altitude to catch the German jets as they landed. Even if the 262s were not caught with their landing gear down, the Tempest could keep up with the 262 at low level. So deadly were Tempest attacks that German flak units began to be concentrated around jet bases specifically to counter these Rat Scramble raids. In combat, the Tempest was to post an enviable 7:1 kill ratio, one of the better ratios of the European theater.
The end of World War II also brought the end to the Tempest V—production had already switched to the Centaurus-powered Tempest II, which were built with improved cooling units for “high and hot” operations in China and India. Though they would not be used against the Japanese, Tempest IIs would continue to police the British Empire in its twilight until they were finally withdrawn from service in the late 1950s, the last piston-engined fighter in British active service. Both India and Pakistan would receive Tempest IIs, and these would be used in the first of the Indo-Pakistani Wars of the 1950s. 1702 Tempests were built, and a handful, including a few flyable examples, remain in existence today.
The Hawker Tempest is represented by a Tempest V in the Malmstrom Museum’s Top Ace collection, representing the aircraft flown by French ace Pierre Clostermann. This aircraft flew with 274 Squadron from bases in France in 1944-1945, and wears late-war RAF camouflage of two shades of gray over light gray, with late-war darker roundels and smaller fin flash. It carries a Cross of Lorraine on the radiator housing beneath the nose to indicate an aircraft of the Free French flying with the RAF. Clostermann named this aircraft Le Grand Charles (“Big Charles”); the aircraft was later wrecked beyond repair in a landing accident in November 1945.